


Making Biscuits

by Nemainofthewater



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Cats, Critmas Exchange 2020, Don't copy to another site, Family, Fluff, Gen, Widogast's Nascent Nein-Sided Tower, just a tiny bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:41:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28246326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemainofthewater/pseuds/Nemainofthewater
Summary: Jester plonked down next to him with a swoosh of her skirts, a doughnut clutched in one hand (dark chocolate with sprinkles) and another in her mouth. Caleb eyed them suspiciously and then gently started to pack away his more valuable notes. The occasional dick doodle was easy enough to ignore (and, though he’d never admit it, made him smile whenever he saw them) but chocolate was infinitely harder to get out of vellum.“Caaaaayleeb,” Jester said, her cheeks bulging as she tried to speak past her mouthful of pastry, “I’mbored.”
Relationships: Jester Lavorre & Caleb Widogast
Comments: 13
Kudos: 25
Collections: Critmas Exchange 2020





	Making Biscuits

**Author's Note:**

  * For [C-chan (1001paperboxes)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/1001paperboxes/gifts).



> C-chan, I hope that you enjoy this gift and have a very merry Critmas!!

Jester plonked down next to him with a _swoosh_ of her skirts, a doughnut clutched in one hand (dark chocolate with sprinkles) and another in her mouth. Caleb eyed them suspiciously and then gently started to pack away his more valuable notes. The occasional dick doodle was easy enough to ignore (and, though he’d never admit it, made him smile whenever he saw them) but chocolate was infinitely harder to get out of vellum.

“Caaaaayleeb,” Jester said, her cheeks bulging as she tried to speak past her mouthful of pastry, “I’m _bored._ ” She pouted at him, the effect only slightly spoilt by the chocolate smudged around her mouth.

“Jester,” Caleb said, “I’m a little busy at the moment.” His desk was overflowing with papers and books that he had quickly scanned through at the Cobalt Soul, mindlessly memorizing as many as possible in the short time that he’d had before the Nein had been forced to leave Zadash (again). Mixed in with his reference materials were numerous letters and documents that Essek had quietly presented to him the last time they had been in Rosohna, all of them to do with Trent Ikithon and the Cerberus Assembly.

Every day felt like one step forward and two steps back, but he was making progress. And more progress would be made if he could _concentrate._

(He knew that perhaps his obsessive researching wasn’t the healthiest way to go about his goal of taking down the Academy. But what did that matter when he had already wasted so much time- first in the Asylum and then when he was too scared of being found by Trent to do anything more than survive. It was only when the Nein had come into his life that he had realised that there was more to his life than survival, and more than that, that even a group of, chaotic at best, mercenaries could affect so much of the world.)

“Surely there are other things that you can do? There are painting supplies in the salon, or you could make pastries in the kitchen- I made sure there was plenty of cinnamon- or-”

“I’ve already done all of that! And the Traveller is busy, and I’ve already sent my mama soooo many messages and I’m out of spell slots, and I maybespilledallthecinnamon.”

Caleb looked up. Now that he was paying attention, he could see that Jester did indeed have distinct brown patches all over her dress, some in the shape of pawprints, others just plain brown splodges. He sighed, a smile twisting at his lips. At least he wasn’t the one who would have to clean up after her.

“ _Ja_ , I can see that,” Caleb said shaking his head. It was fascinating; the only part of Jester completely untouched by cinnamon were her long, flowing sleeves. He had noticed that they usually stayed clean and unripped despite the impracticality of travelling with so much flowing cloth. Perhaps they had a charm? Prestidigitation woven into the cloth? Or perhaps they had been blessed by the Traveller.

Caleb had tried to ask Jester about her sleeves exactly once. It had ended in a twenty-minute ramble about things that she had _almost_ got her sleeves dirty, which had included chocolate, paint, gnoll blood, and pickle juice before she had got distracted with showing Beau the ‘kick-ass’ picture she had drawn of the Beau’s latest sparring session.

“It wasn’t my fault!” Jester said. Then she paused. “Oooooor maybe it was!” She grinned at him and started to bounce up and down. The last of her doughnut had disappeared into her mouth at some point, and Caleb winced as she reached out with chocolate-covered hands to drag him out of his study and into the central opening. He gave his papers a last longing look, but didn’t bother to resist. Jester was far stronger than he was, and he had a feeling that if he stayed in his study much longer then the next person sent in might be Beau, and she had no compunctions when it came to picking him up and physically moving him somewhere for a break.

“Jester,” Caleb said, resigned to his fate. “What-”

“I need to show you something!” Jester said. “Pleeeease Caleb? I promise it’s good!” She flashed him a smile- and really, that was cheating. There was little that any of the Mighty Nein would not do for one of Jester’s smiles, and Caleb was no exception.

…that was probably why Jester had been sent in…

In any case, Jester didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she just flung herself off the study’s landing with a loud squeal of joy, her sleeves flapping behind her like wings as the spell kicked in and she started to drift down to the lower levels.

Caleb followed more sedately, stepping off the landing and, with a mental command of ‘ _herunter’,_ followed her, eventually catching up with Jester on the fourth floor. The floor that housed the kitchens; even if he hadn’t been the one to design Widogast’s Nascent Nein-sided tower, even if he didn’t have a brain that could not forget information, he would have known that the kitchens were on this floor. Because there was a giant trail of cinnamon trailing out from the door and three very unimpressed cats wiping it up with little cloths held by their tails. As they continued to clean, one of them sneezed. Caleb had never known it was possible for a cat to look so long suffering.

Then Jester took him by the wrist and dragged him forward into the pastry kitchen-

-and Caleb stumbled in to be greeted by a cacophony of meows.

There were what looked like at least two thirds of his feline servants in the kitchen, all holding various cleaning appliances including cloths, mops, brooms, and buckets of soapy water. The entirety of the room was covered in various stains and powders; Caleb suspected that Jester had been severely underplaying it when she said she had ‘spilled the cinnamon’. In fact-

Caleb sneezed five times in quick succession. There was a _lot_ of flour in the air, and he instinctively he clamped down on his magic. He did _not_ want to start a fire. Wryly he thought, _One home burnt down is an accident, twice is sheer carelessness…_

He gave a self-deprecating snort of laughter. Of course, it hadn’t been an accident the first time, had it? His fists clenched and he had to physically fight back the urge to start scratching at his wrists. He took a deep breath and another, trying to calm himself. It would do no good to go down those dark paths in his mind; better he concentrate on his work. Perhaps once Trent was ~~dead gone imprisoned~~ unable to hurt anyone else, then he would be better. 

He looked up to find Jester staring at him with uncharacteristic solemnity in her eyes before she noticed him looking and her smile reappeared on her face, even brighter than before.

“Now, lie down!” she ordered, pointing to a spot in the middle of the kitchen.

“… _Was?_ ”

Jester ignored his protests- if confusion could be considered a protest- and gently pushed him down until he was lying on the ground, staring up at the ceiling. Then she took a handful of something from behind her and started to sprinkle it onto Caleb, careful to avoid his face. Cinnamon by the small of it.

“I don’t-”

But Caleb’s question was cut off because as soon as the cinnamon hit him, one of his cats came to clean it off. And then another. And another. And another. Caleb could barely restrain his giggles as their tails tickled his face and as one of them dug its claws into his sensitive ribs.

“Jester!” Celeb said, trying to avoid the numerous furry butts that were being shoved into his face, “why-” But he couldn’t stop the giggles that spilled out of him.

The cats’ fur was extremely soft, and some of them had given up on cleaning entirely and instead were just starting to make biscuits, kneading his flesh and purring so loudly that Caleb could hardly hear anything else.

“I said you’d like it!” Jester said, giving up on her cinnamon and flopping down beside him to start petting the cats that quickly enveloped her. She reached out and grabbed Caleb’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “Isn’t it the best thing ever?”

Caleb felt a helpless fondness rise within him. He paused for a moment and then snapped his fingers, summoning Frumpkin to his side. The Fey cat looked disgruntled at all the pretenders surrounding him for a moment, before visibly decided that they were all beneath his notice and curled up on Caleb’s head, defending his perch with the occasional hiss and batted paw.

“ _Ja_ ”, said Caleb, surrounded by warmth and softly purring bodies and with Jester’s hand anchoring him to the present. “It is.”

**Author's Note:**

> -flour is very flammable, especially when it's floating in the air  
> -'herunter' means 'down' (as in the direction) in German (or at least I think it does? It's been a while since I studied German)
> 
> I am on Tumblr as [Nemainofthewater ](https://nemainofthewater.tumblr.com)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Making Biscuits](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28671165) by [UnholyCrowley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnholyCrowley/pseuds/UnholyCrowley)




End file.
